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How To Use Local Terraform Provider

Let's say we have a repository for our own Terraform provider in ~/dev/kgal-tf-provider and we want to use it in a main.tf. This document explains how to set it up.

Prerequisites​

go and terraform should be installed.

Create Terraform Local Plugin Directory​

Terraform expects the providers to be found in a specific directory structure.

We need to create this directory structure:

PROVIDER_VERSION=0.0.1
ARCH=darwin_amd64
PROVIDER_NAME=kgal/tf-provider
mkdir -p ~/.terraform.d/plugins/local/$PROVIDER_NAME/$PROVIDER_VERSION/$ARCH

In the example above, we're going to be creating this structure for a provider which will be built in aMac OS with Apple Silicon. You will need to modify that according to your system. To see what architecture you have, run:

go env GOOS GOARCH
darwin
amd_64

Once we have the Terraform local plugin directory structure, we can mode to building the provider and moving it to this directory.

Build the Provider Locally​

cd ~/dev/kgal-tf-provider
go mod tidy
go build -o ~/.terraform.d/plugins/local/$PROVIDER_NAME/$PROVIDER_VERSION/$ARCH/kgal-tf-provider

Tell Terraform to Use Local Provider​

terraform {
  required_providers {
    kgal-tf = {
        source = "local/kgal/tf-provider"
        version = "0.0.1"
    }
  }
}

provider "kgal-tf" { 
  # ....
}

resource "some_resource" "test_res" {
  # ...
}

Reinitialize Terraform​

terraform init -upgrade
terraform plan
terraform apply

After Changes​

If you need to modify the provider code, you will need to modify the provider version, rebuild the provider and terraform init -upgrade.